MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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A rather disappointing loss of plot
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
Clark with the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO)
Barbican
TECHNO polymath Chris Clark reinvents himself as a classical composer with latest album Playground In A Lake, a work that saw him learn how to read and write sheet music before producing, which he performs for the first time with an orchestra.
The album feels like a continuation of his impressive soundtrack work – The Last Panthers, Kiri Variations and Daniel Isn’t Real – and is an elegiac journey that he describes as “a story about real climate change, but told in mythological terms.”
There are moments of beauty and awe, where the juxtaposition of gentle strings with electronic dystopian dissonance on Entrophy Polychord perfectly captures an imagined futurescape, producing what you would expect from a collaboration between an electronic artist and an orchestra.
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